Candidates Less Than A Primary Concern

Fierce Contest Fails To Drum Up Interest

January 30, 2000|By Michael Tackett, Tribune Political Editor.

HUDSON, N.H. — This town has never been wrong. Since 1952, its voters have backed the winner in both the Democrat and Republican first-in-the-nation presidential primaries. Located a nudge over the Massachusetts border, Hudson has endured the state's dramatic economic and political mood swings from recessions to booms, from Estes Kefauver to Pat Buchanan, with an unerring electoral accuracy.

Talk to voters here, at Thompson's Market, the State Farm Insurance office or Wal-Mart, drive along the winding roads that divide its clapboard houses, and it is easy to find supporters for almost any candidate.

Their random voices suggest the possibility of a fairly close race in both party's primaries. But on one point there is near universal agreement: They feel good about their economic circumstances. As if to punctuate that point, New Hampshire voters will cast their primary ballots Tuesday, the day the U.S. economy will break the record for the longest-running period of economic expansion.

The primary will be in part a test of whether that bounty breeds complacency among voters.

The New Hampshire secretary of state is projecting an overall turnout of 48 percent, with 191,000 ballots in the Republican race and 160,000 in the Democratic contest. If accurate, or close to it, those numbers would represent a drop-off of about 20,000 votes in each party--even though the number of registered voters has increased somewhat--since 1996, said deputy secretary of state Robert Ambrose. But it would be about the same number that cast votes in 1992 when both parties had contested presidential primaries.

Should New Hampshire continue that trend, it will mean that the two states showered with the most attention in the primary process showed less-than-profound interest in the race.

But on Saturday, there was at least modest evidence of an interested and engaged electorate. Nearly 1,000 people turned out to see Texas Gov. George W. Bush in Portsmouth. Sen. John McCain of Arizona drew packed crowds in town hall meetings, with people choosing to spend more than an hour of their Saturday to participate in a political discussion. Dozens were turned away from a Bill Bradley speech in Manchester.

"I think it's very important for people to be involved," said Mary Ellen Buckland, who drove up from Massachusetts with her 7-year-old son, Brendan, to listen to Bradley and McCain speak. "I'm not cynical about it."

No matter how many trudge to the polls, New Hampshire's fickle electorate can produce surprising results. "We're three days from the primary and I haven't got a clue who I am going to vote for," said Rick Fine of Hudson, who drove to the McCain town hall meeting in nearby Windham with his wife, Harriet.

The state's idiosyncratic political culture was on display last week in The Union Leader, which has used its front-page editorial as a daily cudgel against Bush.

"Bush insults NH" the headline read. It went on to deride Bush as "Gov. Smirk" and a "double-talking" Texan. In the same issue, there were three editorials and a cartoon designed to bolster the prospects of publisher Steve Forbes. Though the paper's influence may be on the wane, it still reaches Republicans who can be counted on to turn out.

Any substantial drop-off in participation also could magnify the showings of candidates such as Forbes or radio talk show host and former Reagan administration official Alan Keyes. Keyes, an ardent opponent of abortion, has a comparatively small but fervent core of voters unlikely to change their minds and quite likely to make it to the polls.

For the most part, however, voters are not swayed by the more strident views of candidates, and seem to be persuaded instead by more moderating appeals, entreaties toward policies that are less likely to have a dramatic impact on the economy.

For many voters that sense of economic comfort has prompted gravitation toward a political safe bet. Bob Thompson, who has run his small market here for 37 years, still calls most Democrats "communists" or "socialists" and supported Pat Buchanan four years ago.

This year, he said, "I'm going to vote for Bush, mainly because I think he can beat the Democrats." But for every Bush supporter there appears to be at least one for his principal rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Vice President Al Gore's fortunes have surged in recent days, and he emphasizes the state of the economy at almost every turn, a message that was emphatically reinforced by President Clinton in last week's State of the Union address.